Keeping Up and Keeping On
November 20th, 2007 by Sonja

Well then. I’m now keepin’ up with the Joneses and keepin’ on with getting ready for Thanksgiving.

Our first guests arrive today. The house is not ready. It will be. Sort of. Things will be fine and we’ll all have fun. It won’t go according to my original plan, but the necessary things will get done and the unnecessary things will drop away. Hopefully, I will remember to put the turkey in the oven on time.

It turns out that I do not have stress-induced eczema. I have a fungus that is causing the itching. Super! In what has become a standing pre-Thanksgiving tradition for LightHusband and I, we had matching doctors appointments yesterday afternoon. He has an upper respiratory infection and a sinus infection. I have fungus. Ewweth. Apparently we all have fungus on our skin, but if it gets underneath through a break in the skin then it becomes a problem. Bleh. Something I did not want to learn.
It makes having 16 for dinner on Thanksgiving and hosting a party for 35 the next day just another hoop to jump through. Keeping up and keeping on.

In other news, the grandparents will stay an extra day. We’re going to a Washington Capitals game on Saturday evening. This came up as a surprise yesterday afternoon. LightGirl has been chosen to skate with 3 of her team mates to help clear the ice between periods of the game that night. So while the rest of the thousands of fans will be there to see the game, at least five of the fans will be watching the cleaning of the ice! It’s very important you know 😀

Last, I’ve finished The Shack, by William P. Young. It was all the rage several months ago. I read several reviews of it all around the blog-o-sphere (including this one). It looked intriguing. So I threw it in my shopping cart in Amazon. Then one day it arrived. Such a miracle.

I know many (most) folks who read it sat down and did so in one sitting. Certainly, that is possible. And I wish I could have done so. But that wasn’t bloodly likely given my schedule lately. So I grabbed odd moments and before bed-time to read it. It’s a very powerful book packed into a small space. There’s a lot there.

I found it made an excellent companion piece to the book I reviewed here recently, It’s A Dance, by Patrick Oden. Having recently read that book gave me texture to bring to The Shack that I would not have had had I read it earlier.

I’m not entirely certain that every last jot and tittle of the theology is correct.  But then, I don’t know that anyone’s is.  Every one of us are making educated guesses.  Some guesses are more educated than others.  But not one of us knows the whole of what God is up to.  At best we see through a glass darkly; we see in part.  This book’s vision of the whole is winsome, captivating and certainly worth considering.  And certainly well worth the read.


4 Responses  
  • cindy writes:
    November 20th, 20079:51 amat

    sonja- i’m praying today that you’ll be surprised by joy during your busy thanksgiving celebration.

  • sally-coleman@btconnect.com writes:
    November 20th, 200711:16 amat

    prayers that you do indeed make it through the week, and that you will be blessed in the process :-)

  • Maria writes:
    November 20th, 200712:43 pmat

    Sonja — prayers for a happy and peaceful Thanksgiving, despite the stressors! I have both the Shack and Dance on my list, but I figured I’d catch up with the stack I’ve already got before I pull the trigger at amazon. Thanks for reminding me…

  • Patrick writes:
    November 21st, 200711:16 amat

    You certainly got me interested in The Shack. :-)

    It touches on something that I’ve been wrestling with for a while, and even really shaped how I ended up writing. For all the talk about emerging/missional as a lay movement the material produced and the conversation is immensely guild oriented. It’s quite leader emphasizing and the works produced are really the sorts of things only people really engaged in ministry are likely to read and explore.

    There’s certainly a market for us angsty church-burned folk trying to find a new way, but that’s not exactly a broad reach. For all the talk about art and story and creativity the production is very intellectual and technical.

    I think emerging/missional will really begin to settle in when the discussion isn’t on the inner reformation but begins to more and more produce missional works that are accessible to a broad audience who isn’t likely to pick up a book on how to do ministry.

    Where’s our art? Seeing the Shack makes me smile as I see that it’s out there. Thanks for pointing it out.

    And Happy Thanksgiving! I’m so thankful for your wisdom, heart, kind words, and friendship!


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